How about this antimalarial drug solution that Trump is talking about? The U.K. government is looking at this aswell. I had to take them when working in Africa and Indonesia. They work. But they have nasty side effects too... Presumably @aposhark you took them aswell?
I took them, always gave me nausea,and headaches, I had a friend taken really quick by cerebral malaria he contracted in Burma.
Every medical professional I have seen comment on this so far has urged extreme caution saying that the effect if any would likely be tiny, that no real study had been done, that irresponsible claims for this antimalarial could cause a run where too many members of the public hoard this medicine and that the people who have conditions where they actually need it will potentially be left without.
I took Nivaquine once but so many people I met in tropical regions told me about side effects they'd had so I stopped immediately, John. Lots of fellas said gin and tonic was more effective so they did that. I just carried on as normal but I was young and "invincible" back in those days.
You and I (and others) commented here about the immediate need for lockdown when Wuhan erupted, Jim. It didn't happen for reasons the government's scientific advisors knew best but time has moved on now. The doctors and nurses are being as professional as they always are and dealing with the problems as they always have. Positive actions like clapping throughout the UK every Thursday night at 8 pm will continue and I will be out there then as time goes on. There are more and more people coming out every week clapping and banging pots and pans. The little kids join in too.
Coincidentally have just been to the supermarket and bought 4 gin and tonics for the pair of us. I did take these antimalarials with no side effects that I was aware of. But only for about a month to 6 weeks at a time on two separate occasions. When in Indonesia I caught something fairly mildly and the medics said it was malaria and had I not taken the tablets daily then it would have been quite serious. I saw Trump was claiming the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating the antimalarial product as a remedy for Coronavirus.
Reports are coming in now of a plan to ease out of lockdown depending on age and geographical location. A sort of staggered approach. Maybe they could work through the alphabet instead? A collection of mainstream news articles from the past few days:
Is Covid-19 here to stay in the world? It seems there are varying strains of the virus, will international travel cause the virus to re-emerge? Can someone affected by one strain and recover, can then be affected by another strain and/or be a host to enable transmission. Can the virus be passed between different species as now reported in cats? As it is so contagious, then it can be circulated and await for another host, also mutate to another strain to enable re-infection?
Cats can get it and there have be reports of dogs getting it too but so far not reported cases of people getting it from cats or dogs.
No one knows, but given that some other Coronaviruses are seasonal one could expect this one to be so as well. There were early reports from China that suggested 2 strains which they named the S and the L the implication was that one of them might be worse but there has been no real follow up on this and the general belief is that there is no major difference in the deadliness of the various mutations. Like all viruses this thing is mutating all the time although the rate of mutation is quite low and that is encouraging for a vaccine. Yes international travel will open the door again, from any country where they don't actually know the true level of infection in the population, Africa worries me because we have a lot of customers in Africa and we have staff members who regularly travel there and back to our offices. We don't know there is anecdotal evidence supporting the idea that some people have had it twice, but usually for a virus that does not mutate too fast immunity should last a while, people who looked like they were reinfected could have had other immunological problems. We don't know if immunity will be for a few months, a few years or for life, we hope it is for life. The reason that we don't retain immunity very long to viruses like influenza is the rapid mutation rate and the North South seasonality, and for the common cold it is because a couple of hundred different viruses cause the common cold. It absolutely can pass between species, it came to us through another mammalian host, so I would expect it can pass between other mammals too. edit: there are serious worries for our close relatives the great apes, who get the illness and likely with the same issues we have in humans. Might even be a danger for all primates. This looks terrifying but apparently the rate of mutation is not high, this is 3251 samples that have been sequenced so far more than double the number of samples the last time I posted (I think). This is the genetic family tree of this virus, to the left are earlier generations to the right are newer generations, each sample may differ by only a small number of changes. Yes it could mutate SARS in 2002-3 mutated away from being harmful to humans but then again it might not, or it might mutate into something even worse. The mutations that matter from a vaccine viewpoint are mutations to the protein spikes that are its means of entry into our cells, changes to those would likely make the virus look different to our immune systems and render a vaccine useless. https://nextstrain.org./ncov/global
Here is material being highlighted by University Hospitals Birmingham, from a doctor on the ICU units there:
Ok this is a cross post, this is the best information you are going to get and I've not even finished watching it. I've put it in both main CoV threads because it is very relevant. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000h3nm/horizon-2020-coronavirus-special-part-1
Now this is worrying if recovered Virus sufferers can catch it again.. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coro...blow-to-immunity-hopes/ar-BB12rSb0?li=BBoPWjQ And as the reports are from South Korea I doubt that they are untrue..
Yes I agree I would trust their numbers, but there are a lot of variables and possibilities that they mention. Also it has been stated by many scientists that we just don't know if this is common cold style immunity i.e. really short term or if it will last, disappointing if it really is short term as most of us oldies might as well accept that it is all over.
Not if it comes back every few months to have another go Mike, that's the point, in that situation there is never any herd immunity and there is a gradual weakening of the population with more and more susceptible people being culled as time goes on. This is another 'We will see' moment. You need to read that article Mike it is about re-infection, the question for an illness like this if indeed we can get ill more than once would be how many damn times do I have to recover from the damn thing.
I saw a bit of this the other night. Not all of it. I had fallen asleep on the sofa. But what I saw was good and informative, particularly on vaccines.
Smokers are one of the groups that are vulnerable as it is essentially a respiratory disease once it reaches the latter stages. So the stats and medical people are saying.
I would add Vapers to that as well, although I have zero actual evidence that their vaping is causing them harm, that's just a non-scientific gut feeling from me.
